by Karen Anders
Tally sat forward, uncrossing her long bare legs. “What did you find out?”
“Nothing on that, unfortunately.” He thumbed through a few pages and skimmed over more written information. “I also managed to check the charges on his credit cards to see if he’d purchased a ticket from some other source, and again no luck.”
“So you think he’s still in New Orleans?”
“Not necessarily, Tally. He could have gone on someone else’s tab or driven out of the city.”
The distress was evident on her face and Christien switched places and sat down next to her on the couch to give her the rest of what he’d found out. He slipped his arm around her shoulders. “Tally, he hasn’t accessed any money, which is very odd. When someone goes away, he takes money with him.”
“Do you think something has happened to him?”
He squeezed her shoulders. The unexpected sense of loss struck him. He knew what it was like to lose someone you loved. “No, Tally. Don’t do that to yourself. I’m reporting everything I found to you.”
“I appreciate that, Christien,” she said, laying her head on his shoulder and burrowing her face into his neck.
And his heart turned over, that small gesture latching on to his heart and squeezing tight.
As if she realized suddenly what she was doing, she stiffened and pulled away. “We should get going.”
Unsettled by his own reaction to Tally, he nodded and rose from the couch.
Once in his Jeep, Tally asked, “So where are we going tonight?”
“To the Spirit of Fluxus,” he said. The targeted club, only a year old, was located not far from Toujacques Casino. A very convenient establishment for bored party animals attracted to the jazz, food and frivolity of clubbing in the Vieux Carré. A few blocks away they could immerse themselves in the equally dazzling pull of slot machines and blackjack.
“Where?”
Christien’s eyes shifted from the road. “Do you and your brother have a rocky relationship?”
“Not rocky, no. It’s just like any other sibling relationship.”
“I went back to his apartment to search again and he had a flyer tacked up on his fridge for a band that’s playing at that club,” Christien said.
Tally’s gaze swung away from his. “I have no idea what my brother’s tastes in music are. Right now that seems wrong. I realize that I’m negative most of the time.”
“What’s the beef you’re having with your brother?”
“Bree and I want him to go to college. Instead he runs around and sets up for bands. At least I think that’s what he does.”
He lifted his brows and she frowned.
“I didn’t like what he did, so I didn’t pay attention,” she said, a defensive note creeping into her voice.
“Maybe that’s why he’s shutting you out of his life.”
“Look, when you raise a sibling, you can chastise me.”
“You raised your brother?”
“Bree and I did. He was fourteen when my mother up and left and never came back. Mark had to fend for himself for four days before he got nervous and called us.”
“And you were all of…eighteen?”
“Nineteen. I was in my first semester at Stanford and Bree was at Duke. I quit school at the time to care for Mark.”
“Quit? Why didn’t you bring Mark to Stanford with you and live off-campus?”
“It was complicated. Mom just left and, unfortunately, she left us with her debt. I couldn’t pay for school and pay off the money she owed. I always planned to go back. Bree quit Duke a semester later when I could barely make ends meet. We needed the double income to support our brother.”
“So Stanford, huh?”
“Yeah. Why? Does it surprise you?”
“Just another intriguing layer that makes up Tally. What did you major in?”
“Business.”
“Really?”
“That also surprises you?”
“You don’t look like the business type.”
“What type do I look like?”
“Artsy.”
“Art’s an iffy profession. It takes a lot of talent and a lot of work to make it. There’s no guarantee of security.”
“Doing what you love isn’t always about security.”
“I don’t have the luxury of doing what I love, Christien.”
“How did you end up in Court du Chaud?”
“About a year ago, my uncle Guidry died and left the town house to us. Bree and I renovated it.”
“Your uncle? Crazy old man Guidry? Jack told me about him.”
“Yes, and he wasn’t crazy.”
“Sorry. That was out of line.”
“He was convinced that the ghost of Dampier haunted the court and wasn’t afraid to tell anyone about it. He also believed there’s a large cache of treasure he insists the captain hid.”
“If you’re Guidry’s niece that makes you a descendent of Dampier.”
“Yes and I’m proud to be. I’ve…ah, done some research on him and started to collect anything I could find about him. I intend to make sure he takes his place in history. He assisted Lafitte, and saved New Orleans from the British. If the British troops had reached the city proper, they would have burned it to the ground.”
“I have nothing against rogues as long as they don’t break the law in my city.”
“He bent the rules, but the fact remains that if it wasn’t for him, the city would have been lost.”
“Sounds like you really admire this guy?”
“I think he deserves a place in history, yes. I intend to see that he gets it.”
“I like that you’re on a crusade for a pirate.”
Tally gave him a narrow look. “Yeah, I seem to have a soft spot for scalawags.”
Christien chuckled. “I’ve never been a scalawag in my life, but I did get into my share of mischief. I got a kick out of shocking and pissing people off. Most of the time, Jack bailed me out.”
“I got the feeling you were a troublemaker from day one. Your mother must have had her hands full.”
“My mother died twenty years ago yesterday.”
Christien turned into a parking space next to a small brick building with a neon sign proclaiming Spirit of Fluxus. The lot looked nearly full, but he eventually found a parking spot at the farthest end. He turned off the ignition. Silence filled the car. Finally, he turned to her.
“Yesterday. Is that why you weren’t in your office?” Tally asked.
“I was putting flowers on my mother’s grave.”
“Oh.” Tally shifted in her seat and didn’t look at him. “I guess we should go in.”
Talking about his mother’s death wasn’t as hard as it used to be, but he was still surprised that Tally didn’t mouth the usual platitudes. In fact, she seemed in a hurry to drop the subject.
For a moment, it looked like she was going to say something else, but then she opened her door and stepped out of his Jeep. Heading toward the main entrance, he jogged to catch up with her. She slung her purse over her shoulder as she made her way briskly across the blacktop.
Christien hung back, aware of how beautifully she moved. After a short wait, they walked through the doors and into a dark, smoky interior shot through with colored lights that streaked and arced erratically from one end to the other.
At the moment, no live band was playing on the small stage, only a DJ playing music. The DJ was lost in his work, jamming to the tunes and oblivious to the frenzied light show. Synthesized, percussion-heavy music assaulted Christien’s ears, so loud the pounding beat vibrated through his body.
The current choice was a husky-voiced female growling something about lust. It fit with his mood.
Feeling ten times more protective and a hundred times more possessive, Christien took Tally’s arm when he saw all the guys at the bar ogling her.
He sat down and Tally followed suit. When the bartender came over, Christien ordered two beers and pulled Mark’s p
hoto from his wallet. “Have you seen this guy around here lately?”
“I don’t know. Why? You a cop?”
“No. I’m not a cop and he isn’t in any trouble. He’s this woman’s brother and we’re tying to find him. He had a flyer for a band who’s supposed to be playing later on.”
“Right. The Emoticons. They won’t be here until eleven.”
“This guy work for them?”
The guy rubbed the back of his neck and shook his head. “Naw, sorry. I can’t place him.” He set the beers on the bar. “That’ll be nine bucks.”
Christien paid and turned toward Tally’s disappointed expression. “Looks like we wait for the band.”
“Looks like it.”
It wasn’t much more than an open room with a bar and a scattering of tall tables to one side and a stage on the other, a sizable dance floor sandwiched between the two. The ceiling was bare with exposed pipes, ducts and metal beams hung with lights and speakers. A metal, retro-modern balcony circled the main room, with platforms that held tables and chairs.
The funky balcony would be a great lookout place for checking out the action below. “Let’s get up there. We’ll have a better view,” Christien shouted over the music.
Tally nodded.
Once on the main balcony, he searched out a spot that provided the best view of the club, as well as the rest of the balcony. He would have preferred an area less crowded, but didn’t have a lot of options. Below, he scanned the room for any sign of Tally’s brother on the off chance he would appear.
There was an eclectic mishmash of clothing. While some wore casual clothes, others wore more punk studs, buckles, black fingernail polish and piercings. The flashing laser lights, in multiple colors, lanced through a thin haze of smoke, and the music was so loud the metal railing and balcony throbbed beneath his hands and feet.
Yet he saw no one who met her brother’s description.
Tally vibrated with frustration as she searched the crowd as avidly as Christien, hoping for her brother to make an appearance. Her time was running out and soon the Blue Note would be sold.
The restaurant/lounge was the ultimate culmination of her plan and now it was in total jeopardy. She felt sick with the fear that she would end up just like her mother. Empty promises, empty life.
That some day she would bail on the people she loved because of all her ugly failures and broken promises.
The treasure was everything. Everything! It would give her what she’d always wanted and the only thing she really needed.
Security.
Christien moved and his distracting scent had her turning her head to get more of a whiff of him. The sight of him dressed only in his towel had stirred her blood. All that muscle in stark relief built a sweet ache inside her. She remembered she had told Chloe how she’d wanted to run her hands all over him.
A nearby couple was making out; the man had his mouth and hands all over the woman and she unabashedly participated. Tally tried not to watch them, but she couldn’t help it. They were right in her line of vision. The man and woman were completely lost in each other, kissing and rubbing and touching…and it reminded her, with a pang of envy, how much she missed kissing and making love. It had been a while since her ex-boyfriend had walked out on her, unable to deal with her workaholic ways.
What was she waiting for? Christien stood next to her making her totally aware of him just by breathing. He was big and warm and looked delicious, the red of his shirt accentuating the darkness of his hair.
“Don’t that boy need to breathe?” Christien’s amused rough-and-tumble drawl was so close against her ear, a shiver coursed through her.
Tally turned to him. A wave of desire washed over her. He was watching her intently, with a heat that played havoc with her equilibrium and stirred a blend of chaotic, inconvenient responses.
“How long can you hold your breath, sugar?”
He smiled at her. It was a slow, sensuous, utterly male smile of invitation and longing that clearly came from the depths of him and radiated in his eyes.
Tally was unprepared for the small shock that gripped her when his fingers slipped to the nape of her neck. She was even more unsettled by the gentleness of his touch, his power under exquisite control. A woman would always be aware of the strength in this man, she thought, but she would never fear it.
His fingertips moved once more across the nape of her neck, stirring the fine hair that grew there. Tally shivered.
Stepping closer, he cupped the back of her head and with very little pressure brought his mouth down on hers. She moaned softly, the touch of his mouth wildly disorienting, a riot of color for her senses. When both of his hands closed around her, she caught her breath. His warmth and strength reached out to capture her and pull her into a glittering trap. All the fascination, the physical awareness and the underlying compulsion to know Christien that had been unsettling her for days swamped her now.
She knew he was aware of her reaction. It made her feel vulnerable, and for a moment some of her wariness returned.
“Vous me voulez,” he said, his mouth brushing her own.
She knew enough French to translate the words. He’d said, “You want me.”
“Je vous veux,” she responded and he gave her a surprised but pleased smile. When his thumb touched the corner of her lips and urged a response, she moaned softly. She opened her mouth to him and braced herself for the invasion of his tongue.
It was subtle when it came, not a rush at her defenses, but a careful, enticing dance that left her shivering. It was only as he slowly filled her mouth, tasting her intimately, that she began to realize just how thorough his ultimate possession would be.
He reluctantly broke the kiss as soon as the DJ stopped.
For a moment, she looked into his dark and sensual eyes and was afraid he would see the longing in hers, but all she encountered was a desire that mirrored her own.
From their vantage point, they could see the band roll in, but the person setting up for them wasn’t Mark.
“I’m going down to talk to the band. I’ll be right back,” Christien said.
“I’ll go with you.”
“I think it’s better if you stay here. One person asking questions is enough to spook them. We don’t want them to clam up.”
“Okay.”
Below, Christien crossed the full expanse of the bar. Tally watched as a number of women stopped him, smiling and flirting. Christien nodded to them, but gave them no encouragement. Tally hadn’t realized how hard she’d gripped the metal rail beneath her palms or the flash of what she could only call jealousy.
She released the bar, letting that emotion flow out of her. Christien was a free agent. She had no hold over him and didn’t want one. He would be spectacular in bed and that was all that interested Tally.
He stopped in front of the stage. She watched as Christien talked to one of the band members and showed him Mark’s picture. Tally’s heart soared and started to pound as the guy nodded his head and spoke to Christien.
She waited with bated breath as he made his way back across the floor, the very same women trying to get his attention, but all she felt now was irritation. When he finally got to the balcony, Tally said, “Have they seen him?”
“Yes, a few days ago and…ah…”
“What?”
“He was complaining about you.”
“Was he?”
“Tally, have you considered that he could be dodging you?”
Tally blinked, shocked at the sting in her eyes. She looked away. Knowing that Mark resented her so much hurt Tally to the very core of who she was. “I guess that’s possible.”
She felt the hot slide of Christien’s hand around her nape. Her heart slipped a little when she saw the tenderness in his soft brown eyes.
He nodded in understanding, but his gaze held a gentleness that tugged at her heart. “He’s a kid, Tally, and maybe he’s acting immature. Doesn’t mean he doesn’t love you. Maybe you sho
uld give him some time to cool down.”
Tally began to pace restlessly—anything to burn off the extra energy building within her. “No. I have to talk to him.”
“Riding a guy hard isn’t going to get the results you want. Give him some room to find out who he is, he’ll come around to your way of thinking.”
Tally shrugged. “Seems like Bree and I have all the ambition in the family. Mark doesn’t seem to have any.”
“You don’t know that. He’s nineteen. He’s young and, for the record, so are you.”
“Thanks for that information, Grandpa.”
“I’m just saying prodding doesn’t work.”
“Mark said I was a nag.”
“The band didn’t use that specific word.”
“I’ll feel much better if I talk to him, Christien. You’ll help me find him, won’t you?”
Christien sighed. “The band he’s currently working for is called Calendar Boys, but the lead singer downstairs told me they’re on the road. He said they’ll be back in town tomorrow night.”
“You’ll help me?”
“Yes, chère, I’ll help you. I can’t seem to say no.”
6
“TELL ME YOU HAVE NO INTENTION of sleeping alone tonight,” Christien said as soon as the door shut behind them.
His tone set off such a reaction in her that she could barely stay erect, and she closed her eyes trying to bring her wayward feelings under control.
“Tell me what I want to hear.” Smiling slightly, he stroked her lip with his thumb, his voice softer, huskier, more seductive.
Mesmerized by the look in his eyes, she somehow managed to swallow, her voice so uneven it didn’t sound like her own. “I have no intention of sleeping alone tonight.” She tried to tell herself it was different. Need and want. Very different.
“That’s good. Would you like a drink?”
The fact that he didn’t immediately get right down to sex did unbearable things to her heart, and she closed her eyes against the sudden fullness in her chest.
Christien slid his fingers along her neck, his touch making her shiver; then he rubbed his thumb against her frantically beating pulse point.
